Andrew Kreisberg sobre el introducir a The Atom, Firestorm & Katana
Por Eric Goldman 22 de Julio, 2014
Andrew Kreisberg is keeping busy. The executive producer of Arrow is now launching, along with Greg Berlanti and Geoff Johns, the highly-anticipated spinoff series, The Flash, while Arrow is going strong into Season 3 this fall.
As we head into Comic-Con, where both Arrow and The Flash will be appearing, I spoke to Kreisberg about what’s to come on both shows, including the introduction of Roy Palmer/The Atom (played by Superman Return's Brandon Routh) and Katana (played by Sin City's Devon Aoki) on Arrow and the introduction of Ronnie Raymond/Firestorm (played by The Tomorrow People's Robbie Amell, who also happens to be Stephen Amell's cousin) on The Flash. With all these DC heroes populating both shows, could we eventually see a TV version of the Justice League?
IGN TV: You’ve got both shows going now. Is it just an amazing, overwhelming world of DC heroes running through your head?
Andrew Kreisberg: Yes! But it's a childhood dream come true. I was on one stage yesterday watching Oliver Queen and Ray Palmer. Then I walked over to the other stage where I had Barry Allen and Iris West. I mean, it's the hardest I've ever worked. It's the hardest work I've ever done, but there's zero reason to complain. There are so few people who get to even become a writer or producer anyway, but then to get to write and produce these characters that are so much a part of my own personal DNA and so much a part of my life that I get to be one small part of taking them on this leg of their journey is insanity.
IGN: So let's start with Arrow. It’s been reported that Sara is returning. Can you talk about her coming back and what's been going on while she's been gone?
Kreisberg: We have her [Caity Lotz] booked for three episodes, with hopefully more. She has come back to Starling City because she is on a mission... and that is all I can say.
IGN: Will we see Nyssa or get an update on Nyssa?
Kreisberg: A lot of what we did in Season 1 was setting up Season 2. You can be assured that a lot of the things we did in Season 2 are to help set up Season 3.
IGN: Continuing on that track, a lot of rumors have been circulating about Ra's al Ghul. Anything you can say about him? In Season 1, you referenced him without naming him. Then in Season 2, you named him and you brought in Nyssa. There's a logical next step, you know? [Laughs]
Kreisberg: You know us -- we're never one to do the logical thing! You know, I can't comment on that -- I can neither confirm nor deny. But rest assured, we have a lot of amazing stuff set up, mythology-wise, this year that will really feel like an extension of everything we've done before.
IGN: Where is Oliver at when we begin this season, in the wake of defeating Slade?
Kreisberg: Well, the show picks up six or seven months later, and he's actually in a really good place. Marc Guggenheim likes to joke, "Everything's coming up Oliver." He defeated Slade, crime is down in the city, the police have disbanded the anti-vigilante task force. You know, he's starting to get the feeling that there might be life beyond the hood, and that's really the theme of this season, for Oliver: "Can I be Oliver Queen and be Arrow?" One of the things that the beginning of the season, especially the premiere, shows that, for right now, it's easier to be Arrow than it is to be Oliver Queen. Getting his company back and having a life are going to prove to be a lot harder than he suspected.
IGN: And what can you say about Mr. Ray Palmer?
Kreisberg: I think, in the great tradition of shows when they hit Season 3, we're bringing on a game-changing character, somebody who's brought on specifically to shake up all the characters, and we are overjoyed and beyond thrilled that Brandon is willing to come on. First of all, he's such an amazing guy. Beyond that, he's just such an amazing actor. One of the things we really wanted to inject more into the show was humor. What's funny about Oliver and Felicity is that he's the straight man. She sort of gets all the funny lines.
What's great about having Brandon on the show is Brandon's an old-time movie star. He's like Jimmy Stewart. He can play that rat-tat-tat, Preston Sturges, you know, His Girl Friday with Felicity. It just brings a whole other energy to the show. It's similar for us when we brought on Grant [Gustin]. Like, we already had a Stephen Amell. So when we were casting the Flash, we wanted somebody who looked different and felt different and had a different energy. In a way, Brandon almost combines Grant and Stephen. He's obviously got the superhero looks and superhero physique, but he has the fun and funny and charm that Grant brings to Barry. Just from what I've seen so far in the dailies, we are so grateful that he's taken another step back into the DC Universe.
IGN: What about his alter ego? Any hints of that or how that might present itself?
Kreisberg: Well, you don't bring Brandon Routh onto your show to not go down that path. As always with these things, how, when, where and why will be the journey of the season.
IGN: Let me flip over to The Flash, and the introduction of another DC character, with the recent Firestorm announcement.
Kreisberg: Well, we'll first meet him in flashbacks, and then we'll see how it evolves from there. I got to know Robbie [Amell] a little bit. Obviously I didn't work on The Tomorrow People, but Greg [Berlanti] did. So I got to see him on the set and got to know him a little bit. He's just such an amazing kid and just a special guy. When we knew we wanted to bring Ronnie in, you know, it was a list of one. Again, we're just so grateful Robbie was willing to come and play.
IGN: I know the week these casting announcement came out, there were some jokey tweets and retweets going around with the Amells and Brandon and Grant about how you're building quite the pseudo-Justice League here between these two shows -- lots of DC characters going on!
Kreisberg: Yeah, I mean, you've got Ray Palmer, you've got Ronnie Raymond, you've got Oliver Queen, Barry Allen.
IGN: You’ve got your Canary!
Kreisberg: Canary! You have Katana. So there's a lot.
IGN: So you know people are going to be hoping for that super-mega crossover where all these people are standing there together in costume eventually.
Kreisberg: I'd be hoping for that too! Like I said, all of this is a dream come true. When we started Arrow, I had no idea that we'd ever be standing here with a spinoff, let alone a spinoff including the Flash, let alone having both shows have Firestorm, Huntress, Katana and all of the other amazing DC characters at our disposal. It's been so thrilling for DC Comics and how open they've been with their playbook for us. We just keep getting these opportunities. It's pretty cool.
IGN: Before I let you go, since you mentioned her, I'll ask about Katana and opening up the flashbacks to an off-island scenario to introduce her.
Kreisberg: This is actually something we've been planning for a really long time. We had a couple of big ideas early on. One was that Sara was alive, and one was that, at the end of year two, Oliver wakes up and he's not on the island. So it's actually pretty amazing to be here, starting Season 3, and having so many of these big ideas come to fruition. You know, we're so excited by it, because for one thing, as fun as the island was, it did start to become very limiting. There was a limited number of characters, and sometimes we had to tread water to avoid hitting some big sign posts too fast. Sometimes we treaded water better than other times. One of the things that we really learned was that the audience now is able to follow along, and if we do an -out-of-sequence flashback, like seeing Dig's flashbacks last year or Sara's flashbacks, this year we're able to do more of that. Hopefully the flashback story feels more streamlined. Just being in Hong Kong and seeing -- you know, I think people assumed it was five years on the island, but there've been these hints all along, whether it was stuff Oliver said or his relationship with Amanda, where in the present there were hints that Oliver had a much richer life than five years on the island, and getting to explore that and seeing the kinds of things he did and the missions he went on and what kind of choices he was force to make. There's still some hope in humanity in Oliver, and I think the guy who comes back in the pilot is a pretty dark, tortured character. This is really the year where, as terrible as things have been up until this point with flashbacks, this is really where we're taking a big step into the darkness.
IGN: What can you say about Katana as far as her personality or how we meet her?
Kreisberg: You know, Oliver has many, many skills, some of which we've seen and some we haven't -- and Katana is going to be another surprisingly large influence on his growth as both a hero and a fighting machine.
IGN: How cool is it for you to see the action figures coming out based on your versions of those characters?
Kreisberg: It's absolutely insane. It is absolutely insane. I keep saying the same thing, and I feel like I sound like a broken record, but to get that box with Oliver Queen and Deathstroke in it, it's just, you know -- I have pictures of myself holding Batman and Superman and Robin when I was three, four or five. That I have that with these characters, it's pretty cool.
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